I have finally recuperated enough from my XMAS cooking and eating marathon yesterday (I ate like I had 10 rectums) to put a post up. We had some family over early yesterday for present opening. In addition to deviled eggs, bagels and a few other things, I decided to give pork candy a try for the first time and also make some ABT's.I had to get up around 6:30am to prep the appetizers and also get the Turkey for dinner marinating. I had prepped the ham the night before.

For the pork candy I used Kielbasa sausage as well as some chicken apple sausage. I mixed up some brown sugar and rub and filled em up.

Next up were the ABT's. One person that was with us is allergic to shell fish (poor guy) soI opted to thaw out some pulled pork that I had smoked a couple weeks ago and use some of it for ABT's. The sliced jalapeno was filled with pork and topped with bacon. In addition to the pork ABT's I also made up some shrimp stuffed ones. These peppers were filled with some onion and chive cream cheese, a large shrimp, a bit of shredded pepper jack cheese and then topped with bacon. They went into the smoker at 220 for just under 3 hours.

Here are the Pork Candy and ABT's as they went into the smoker with a mix of apple and hickory pellets.

Coming along. Almost done!

Success!

The appetizers were a great success. Now onto dinner. As I said, the ham was prepped the night before. I skinned it and put the trimmings in a bag for later use..I scored the ham cross hatch style, rubbed it down with some maple syrup, onion flakes and paprika. I then injected it with some more maple syrup put it in a turkey bag and let it set overnight.

Once the appetizers were out of the smoker, the ham was ready to go in. At 11:30 yesterday morning, the ham cooking began. The stuff I trimmed off the ham was placed on a rack above the ham to add to the flavor.

It finished at 146* around 6PM.

I had done this style turkey once before but I had injected it with a Cajun butter mix and it came out too salty. I also let it marinade nearly 24 hours which was too long. This time without injecting and only marinating 8 hours, it turned out to be the best turkey any of us have ever had.. That said, here is the recipe. If you have a turkey fryer, I highly recommend you give this a shot! Don't inject and don't let it marinate too long!

1/2 cup black pepper

1/2 cup Cayenne pepper

1 cup Cajun seasoning

16 oz Italian dressing

2 Tbs garlic powder

Mix dry ingredients and about 12 oz Italian dressing in a bowl. It will be very thick. Don't worry. Use the mix to rub the turkey down with a good coating. I also pushed a little bit under the skin around the breasts. Put the turkey in a brining bag. Use the remaining Italian dressing to fill the chest cavity and put the bird in the fridge for around 8 hours.

While the ham was finishing up, the bird went into the oil. It was only an 11 pound bird so it was cooked in about 42 minutes. It was the best tasting and juiciest turkey I have ever had..

Thanks for the compliments guys! I owe much credit to you guys as all of my smokes of late were heavily influenced by the methods you guys post. I never would have though about rubbing a ham down with maple syrup, let alone injecting with maple syrup until I began reading up here. That said, I have to thank you guys for the great ideas and wealth of information on this forum!

Quote:

Originally Posted by realtorterry

Fantastic!!

Love to see some sliced pics!!

Unfortunately, by the time the ham and turkey were done resting, my anxiousness to eat outweighed my memory & I totally forgot to take pics of the cut meat. The ham turned out amazing. I just ate some ham and turkey left overs and I have to say, this was the best ham and turkey (even cold) that I have had to date.

I will remember to take a couple pics tonight when we work on dinner left overs.